Chicken for Linda!, winner of the Annecy Cristal, opens Animest.18 with a touching story of food, family, and childhood

Amid Paris paralyzed by a general strike, a charming family story unfolds in Chicken for Linda! (Linda veut du poulet!), the opening film of the 18th edition of the Animest International Animation Film Festival (October 6-15, Bucharest), and in a national premiere in Romania. A family drama served with a generous helping of humor in a unique, intimate and touching way, the film explores the relationship between an overworked mother and her daughter, Linda, and their connection to their extended family, as well as to the greater community–in a world where nothing seems to make sense anymore.

This year’s Annecy Festival Cristal winner will be screened in Bucharest on October 6, starting at 7 PM, at Sala Luceafărul (formerly Cinema Pro). Get your tickets on the Eventbook platform: https://eventbook.ro/film/bilete-animest-18-pui-pentru-linda!

“I wouldn’t hesitate to call [it] the best film at Cannes this year,” gushed a Variety review of the animated feature film, whose international premiere was programmed in the ACID section. The story, simple yet powerful, captures the depth of the mother-daughter connection, the nurturing nature of community, as well as childhood’s uncompromising revolutionary spirit.

A caring mother, Paulette feels guilty after unjustly punishing Linda and would do anything to make it up to her. Linda immediately asks for a meal of chicken with peppers, like her deceased father used to make. Sounds doable, except that Paulette was never the best chef, and with a general strike closing stores all across town, ingredients are hard to come by. This will not stop Paulette, though! The mother-daughter duo embark on a colorful adventure that the entire community soon joins, taking a story that started in a regular single-parent home to the streets outside, and finally enveloping all of Paris. Thus, a revolution begins.

"The project started from a desire to make a film aimed at young audiences, which would be neither a tale nor a fantastic story," directors Sébastien Laudenbach and Chiara Malta said. "It all starts with an injustice, because it is something that concerns children a lot, that they experience very regularly. We want to make a film very close to them, which is itself like a child. A turbulent, not well-behaved child, the most disruptive for a class, a group, a society, but also the most touching one". Chicken for Linda! marks Animest audiences’ second encounter with Sébastien Laudenbach, whose The Girl Without Hands won the Feature Film Competition at Animest in 2016.

The film’s 2D hand-painted animation uses bright, color-blocked characters and comedic moments to subtly explore deeper topics: grief, complex mother-daughter relationships, friendship, childhood, people’s position towards authority, and the right to accessible housing, all moving against the backdrop of a city that is temporarily paralyzed.

Children will love everything about this film, easily understanding Linda and her friends thanks to the realistic narrative style, which sees adults making mistakes, parents sneakily eating sweets, authority being questioned, and those we love seeming to just disappear from our lives forever. Grown-up audiences will also get immersed in this story about home-cooked meals that bring people closer together and the power of family: parents, grandparents, and the community.

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The Animest Festival is a project of the Animest Association, co-financed by the MEDIA Program of the European Union and AFCN–the Administration of the National Cultural Fund.

The Animest.18 project is co-financed by the Bucharest Municipality through ARCUB. The project does not necessarily represent the official position of the Bucharest Municipality or of ARCUB.

Partner: CNDB–The National Center for Dance Bucharest.

Media partners: Radio Romania Cultural, IQads, Zile si Nopți, Elle, Vice, Scena9, Agerpres, Ziarul Metropolis, Mindcraft Stories, Happ.ro, LiterNet, MovieNews, Cinefan, Cinefilia, AaRC.ro, AIVImedia.hub, Munteanu.

Monitoring partner: mediaTRUST.